Sources of GIS Data

Data for U.S. Business Locations 1999 to 2010

Harvard has a license for a product named ESRI Business Analyst that provides information on the locations of all of the businesses in the country from 2006 through 2011. These data are available to GSD users through the shared network drive Goliath/geo/esri_business_analyst. Documentation of these datasets can be viewed in Armap through Right-Click > Data > View Item Description.

The GSD also as a commercial CD Phonebook application that purports to provide access to all of the business data fo rthe US for the year 2000. These instructions cover how to download information from this CD
and turn it into spots in an ArcGIS map.

Related Documents

Map Drive N: to \\goliath.design.harvard.edu\public\geo\selphone

In Windows Explorer, go to Tools > Map Network Drive, pull down the
top menu to specify Drive N:\, and fill in the Folder field with
\\goliath.design.harvard.edu\public\geo\selphone. Hint:
if you don't use drive N: you will not be able to use the business
directory!

Click the icon for N:/Select Phone/phonebks.exe

Inside selphone is a directory names Select Phone. Inside this is a green icon
that looks like a CD with a phone handset in front of it. The name of the file
is phonebks.exe. Double-click it. A lot of advertisements come up. Click them
and they go away. Finally a grey window arises that asks you if you want to
register or continue. Just click continue. If it says you have exceeded your
allocation of free uses, see the last item on this list of steps.

Select a City or zip code

You want to avoid downloading more than a couple hundred records
at the same time. So it is best to restrict your queries geographically
or by the industry code, or both. Begin by going to the Search menu
and pulling down to Lookup and choose City.

Select an SIC code -- Standard Industrial Classification

Likewise, do a lookup on SIC code. If you can't guess the exact names of an SIC,
you can enter any sequence of characters into the search box, and click search.
When you find what you need, select it and click OK.

Retrieve Listings

The last two steps should have resulted in the City and SIC blanks being filled
in at the top of your blank table. When you choose Retrieve Listings from the
Select menu, it will pull out the correct records from the directory.

Scroll to the bottom and select them all

If you don't have too many records retrieved, you should be able to scroll to
the bottom of the list by pulling the scroll bar down several times. Pulling
it once usually isn't enough; watch out! When you finally get to the bottom,
click and drag to the top, highlighting all the records.

Copy Listings -- using Edit->Copy

Not much more to say here. You can also use Ctrl-C to copy all the records to
the clip board. Do not use File->Copy Special... or you will have to pay!

Open the Excel template table

There is an excel template in a folder named GSD_Special, within your drive N:.
Open it. This has the column names and all the right data types corresponding
to the stuff you copied out of the selphone directory.

Paste the records

The first row in the excel template is the column names. You should
scroll all the way to the left, and select the cell just under the
cell that says "name" in it and use Edit->Paste to paste the records
you copied from the Phone Book app. This should populate your table. Check
to make sure the data under each column name seems logical

Select the data-filled cells from the Excel workbook

The idea now is to select the data and headings, but not a lot of blank cells,
so you can export the table out as a dbase file which can be imported into arcGIS.
The best way to do this is to scroll down and over to the bottom-right corner
of the sheet. Then click and drag back to the top left, selecting all the
data-filled cells.

Save the selection as DBF 3 file

Use File->save as to save as a DBF3 format file. Save this file with the
rest of your GIS data, and give it a meaningful name like Gas_Stations.dbf.

Open the table in ArcGIS

In ArcGIS, use File->Add Data to find your dbf table and add it to your
map. Note that in your list of layers on the left of the map frame there are
two tabs for "Display and Source" Tables only show up in the layer list
when the source tab is selected.

Use Tools->Add XY Data to turn the records into an 'Event Theme'. In
AddXY Data dialog box, the Lattitude and Longitude fields from the dbase
table should be correctly designated as Y and X.

Export your Shape FIle

Once your amazement subsides, you may want to save your new theme as a shape file
so that it is easy to add in the future. Right-click on the theme, and
choose Data->Export Data to preserve all of this as an ESRI Shape file that
you can open in future ArcGIS sessions.

Save a copy of the SIC Lookup Table

While you have \\maps\selphone mapped, drag a copy of the file,
sic_lut.dbf from the gsd_special directory, into tha same directory
as your new shape file. This lookup table can be used to create custom
categories of businesses according to the 400-class Standard
Industrial Classsification. For tips, see the GSD Manual page,
Using Lookup Tables in ArcGIS

When you run out of free trials, download this.

The CD application has an annoying feature that wants you to register after you have used it 8 times. The GSD has 5 legitamately licencensed copies of this application, which are managed through our keyserver, so it is OK for everyone to register their copy. Here's how:
right-click here and save this file into your c:\windows folder or your
c:\winnt folder if you have one. The idea is to replace the existing file named
phonebks.ini. This should let you play several more times.